Into My Darkness
by Disasteriffic Kaz
Summary: Sam finds fear in a dark tunnel with only Dean to find him in time. hurt!Sam awesome!Dean set post 7x02


**Title:** Into My Darkness

**Author:** Disasteriffic Kaz

**Info:** Sam finds fear in a dark tunnel with only Dean to find him in time. hurt!Sam awesome!Dean set post 7x02

**Author's Note**: This one is born out of my own phobia. All this time and all these stories and I've never inflicted this on one of the boys so…here you are; my own personal hell via Sam; my favorite, long-suffering whipping-boy. LOL Enjoy.

**Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678** :D– Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.

_**Follow me on __Facebook as "DisasterifficKaz"__ for frequent fic updates or just to chat!_

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**__There are so many of you and only one of me. Please know that I see, love and am grateful for each and every review though I may rarely respond. I figure you would rather have me writing than be a slave to my inbox. :D I love you all._

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Dean hefted the pack on his shoulder and scowled over at his little brother. Sam had found this hunt and he still didn't like it, not one little bit. He wasn't convinced it was anything other than normal animals taking out the occasional passerby. The town was on the edge of a mountain and a forest, and though he'd gone over Sam's research, he hadn't seen any signs that made this 'their' kind of thing. Sam, however, was adamant. Dean rolled his eyes because Sam had one of his hunches and, after much arguing, here they were.

"I'm right, Dean," Sam said softly. The look on his big brother's face was clear; he still thought Sam was mistaken about this being a job, and Sam rolled his eyes. He had tried to explain, but starting any explanation with 'My gut says…' usually ended badly. Sam pointed as they turned a corner. "There."

Dean sighed and went to the barred door. His brother had determined that whatever was killing people was living in an abandoned section of railway tunnel that cut right through the mountain. Dean jerked the rusted door open with a screech and took out his flashlight. "Suppose we're doing a public service if we gank the wildcat or wolf or whatever the hell this is."

"It's something else." Sam followed his brother into the access tunnel. The mouth of the actual tunnel had been long sealed, but Sam had found one of the old maintenance shafts on the blueprints and was sure that whatever was killing people was using the shafts.

"I'd have more confidence if you even had a clue what you think we're after," Dean told him as they walked. The tunnel was dark and dank with water dripping and the roots of trees poking through the roof where they had worked their way in over the last hundred years. "I still say there's nothing hinkey about people getting chewed on by the local wildlife."

"There were bite marks."

"What part of 'chewed on' is escaping you, college boy?" Dean asked sarcastically and rolled his eyes with a laugh.

Sam aimed a bitch-face at his brother's back. "You know what I mean. Two punctures on every body."

"Dude, the bodies were chew-toys. Way more than just two bite marks."

"There were pairs. They were…you know, you could give me a little credit here," Sam said angrily. Dean was making him feel like a teenager again, questioning his research. He understood this new lack of faith in his skills was brought on by his wall crumbling and the knowledge that Sam wasn't alone in his head, but it still grated on his nerves that Dean seemed so unwilling to even consider what he was saying.

"Of course he doesn't trust you, Sammy." Lucifer's cheerful voice sounded over Sam's left shoulder. "Your eggs are scrambled!"

Sam hitched his step and shook his head minutely. He tightened his grip around his flashlight in his right hand so it dug into his palm and the scar there. He took a deep breath to steady himself and not give himself away to Dean; his big brother had more than enough to worry about already.

Dean glanced over his shoulder and, in the glow from the flashlight, saw the tight lines around his brother's eyes that said he was having a rough moment. He looked away and sighed. "Alright. You're right. I'm willing to trust that geek brain of yours and see where this goes." He still thought Sam was wrong, but Dean wasn't about to give the devil in his brother's head any help, and he knew Sam was fighting it right then.

Sam looked up in surprise and felt a small smile tug at his mouth as Lucifer's voice faded away. "If I'm wrong, I'll…I'll detail the Impala."

Dean chuckled and nodded. "Deal."

"If I'm right, you have to go running with me next time."

"Don't push it, Sammy," Dean sent a weak attempt at a glare over his shoulder while his brother snorted a laugh. "Head's up," He warned as a door came in sight at the other end of the tunnel. Dean went to the door and put a hand on the handle. He felt a light tap on his shoulder and knew Sam was ready in case something came out. Dean gave it a turn and pulled the old, metal door open with a clang onto more darkness.

"Looks clear," Sam said and moved his gun away as Dean stepped in front of him to go through the door.

Dean went through the door and felt cooler, staler air on his face as he shone his light around the wide, tall tunnel. He kicked an old rail, long gone orange with rust at his feet. "Maybe we can catch a ride out."

Sam laughed softly, hearing the sound echo back to him. "There hasn't been a train through this tunnel in almost eighty years, dude. Might be waiting a while."

"So there's no dining car, is what you're tellin' me?" Dean smirked at him as Sam went wide and they started down the tunnel. "Knew I should've grabbed take-out before we came down here."

Sam rolled his eyes and played his light over the walls and floor. He knelt by one of the rails. "Something's been through here recently. Can't tell what it was though."

Dean nodded, his light following marks in the dust and dirt. "Yeah, nothing human anyway." They were clearly not footprints. "These look more like drag marks. Maybe a hungry bear pullin' dinner back through here."

"It's not a bear," Sam said absently and stood, starting down the tunnel again. "We'd see paw prints."

"Ok, I'll give you that one." Dean stepped around a pile of rubble from a partially collapsed wall and frowned. "Your research say how unstable these tunnels are?"

Sam shook his head. "Just that there are cave-ins from time to time, some sections of the tunnel blocked, nothing specific. No one's been in here to map the place out in decades." He shrugged. "Which makes it the perfect place for something nasty to hide out and eat people."

"Awesome." Dean began to think that maybe Sam was right and this was their sort of job after all. "Beats trudging through the woods, I guess."

Sam chuckled. "Anything but camping?"

"Damn straight," Dean said with feeling. "Come on." He picked up the pace and kept his light on the tracks on the ground, trusting Sam to watch their backs. The disused tunnel ran for miles through the mountain, turning several times before coming out the other side, and in between was a network of maintenance tunnels that he sincerely hoped they wouldn't have to search.

An hour later saw them deep into the mountainside and Sam having to fight the feeling that they were going to be crushed with all that rock above them. He could see a tightness around his brother's eyes that said he was feeling the same.

"There oughta be more wildlife in here," Dean commented, relieved to hear his own voice even as it echoed back to him. "I haven't even seen a damn rat since we came down here."

Sam nodded. "Whatever it is, it's eaten everything else before moving on to people." He scraped the bottom of his boot along the ground when he felt something stick to it and shone his light down. "Hang on." He bent and grabbed his foot to get a look.

"Don't tell me you stepped in someone's hundred year old gum, dude," Dean said with a laugh and was reminded of another time his little brother had tried to get gum off the bottom of his shoe and lost it. He had to work to muffle the snort of laughter at Sam's disgusted look.

"It's not gum, jerk." Sam groaned and pushed his gun under his arm so he could pick at the stuff on the bottom of his shoe. "I don't know what this is." It was filmy, coated in the dust and grime from the tunnel floor and very sticky. He had to scrape it off on the train track with a grunt of effort.

Dean played his light over the floor, seeing more of the stuff here and there and up the walls where it seemed to cling like a dust-brown film. "Huh." He could feel it pulling at the tips of his fingers even with the layer of dust and frowned. "It's like…tacky super glue or something. Weird."

Sam started mentally sorting through in his head every creature he could think of that they had ever encountered, seen in their Dad's journal, and even those he'd read of to try and think what could do this.

"You hear that?" Dean stepped around another rockfall and aimed his light down the tunnel. "Running water."

Sam strode up next to him and past. "Probably an underground stream or something that's broken through the wall somewhere."

Dean turned to peer behind them with a sudden feeling that they were no longer alone in the tunnel. "Sam?"

"Yeah, I feel it." Sam adjusted his grip on his gun and slowed his pace so his footfalls were silent. Like his brother, he had the definite sense that something was now stalking them in the inky darkness. "I wish we'd brought a flood light."

Dean snorted softly, keeping an eye on his feet so he didn't trip over the rails stretching ahead and behind them. His nerves were thrumming with the knowledge that they weren't alone even if he couldn't see or hear anything and he knew better than to discount his gut. "I got a bad feeling about this."

Sam smirked and went further down the tunnel. The sticky film over the walls was making him uneasy and his feet were beginning to stick to the floor in spots as he walked over the stuff. "Maybe it's some sort of…mutated…snail or…or slug?"

"Ok, eww." Dean laughed, keeping it short and quiet. "You see anything? This is makin' my teeth itch."

"No. Nothing." Sam stopped as he felt a sudden vibration through his boots. "Dean?"

"What the hell is that?" Dean looked down at his feet and then around at the rock fall they had passed as pebbles and small rocks began to roll down to the tunnel floor. "Not good. This is not good. We gotta get outta here! Come on!"

Sam broke into a run behind his brother as the vibration became a tremor that threatened to throw him from his feet. He followed the wildly bouncing light of his brother ahead and kept his own on the rails. "We passed…an access tunnel…about ten yards on your right!"

Dean nodded, sparing his breath and aimed his light along the wall to look for the door. They'd have a better chance of surviving the cave-in, however bad it was, in a smaller tunnel. The shaking became enough to stagger him, and he slapped a hand out to the wall. Dean wrenched it away with a snarl for the feel of the sticky film clinging to it and then found the door. "Here!" He put on a burst of speed as a roaring sound began to grow, echoing painfully in his ears through the tunnel. Dean wrenched the door opened and grunted as he was struck from behind and sent flying into the darkness ahead of his flashlight.

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Dean woke with a low, pained groan and blinked against the gritty feeling in his eyes to get them open. "Sa…" he said, and ended up coughing through his dust-clogged throat. "Sammy?" He was on his stomach, and groaned with the effort of getting up on his elbows. It was pitch black and disorienting, being unable to see anything, even his own hand in front of his face. But worse than that was the silence…the complete lack of any sign that his little brother even with him, let alone alive. "Sam!" Dean grimaced as the noise echoed in what felt like a much smaller space than the train tunnel. He got carefully to his knees and pulled his bag around, grateful that it had stayed with him. He took out his spare flashlight and flicked it on.

"Holy crap," Dean breathed as he looked around. It appeared that falling rock had shoved him through the door into the smaller access tunnel. The door itself was partially blocked, and his panic level took a sharp swing up as he realized there was absolutely no sign Sam had made it through with him. "No. No way. Sam!" He scrambled to his feet and frantically started pulling rubble out of the doorway to make room for himself, trying not to think of his brother being buried under tons of stone and dirt. "Sam! Dammit, you answer me!" Dean pulled, pushed, and shoved the rocky debris with a litany of curses until he finally gained the tunnel and his curses fell silent as his the beam from his flashlight shone along the train tunnel. It was strung with more of the sticky stuff they had been walking on but it wasn't dust covered. It was white, shimmering faintly in the light and the moment he saw it, Dean knew what it was. "Oh, my God."

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Sam coughed himself awake with a dust-choked groan. "Dean?" He put a hand to his head and it came away damp with what had to be his own blood. The pain that shot through his head with his touch confirmed the injury, and he squeezed his eyes shut. There was nothing to see in the darkness anyway, and Sam felt around the ground next to him for his flashlight. His hand brushed across something sticky and he yanked it back. He pushed up so he was sitting and had a rough, panicked moment as something gossamer light brushed into his face. He batted it off, wiping it from his skin, and fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. The darkness was damaging what calm he still had.

"Dean? Are you here?" Sam really needed to hear his brother's voice. Every second of silence wore on him, and then he heard something - a soft scraping, clicking sound as he pulled out his Zippo. "Dean? Please let that be you," Sam whispered as he flicked it open. He spun the wheel, letting the faint light flare into life and illuminate the area around him. After a moment of shock as he processed what he was seeing, Sam scrambled back into the wall with a painful thump while terror choked off his voice. He was surrounded by thickly spun webs that glistened in the light of the flame and shifted with each heavy, fear-filled breath that punched out of him.

Sam's own heavy breathing blew out the light of his Zippo and he frantically re-lit it. "Dean." It was little more than a whisper, trying to work his voice past the lump of fear in his throat. The sight took away his belief that he was out, that he had escaped the cage and Lucifer. He couldn't even press into the scar on his hand without setting aside his meager light when his personal devil appeared beyond the webs with a warm chuckle just for him.

"See, Sammy? This is what a good torture looks like." Lucifer spread his arms and plucked at a few strands of the web. "You think I'm a figment in your head. You think your big damn hero of a big brother got you out and then I swoop back in!" He clapped his hands together and grinned as Sam jumped. "This is my favorite part, bunk-buddy. Every time."

Sam shook his head and pressed his back even harder into the wall, unaware of the wounds in his arms, his legs, and his back as the devil moved through the webs like they weren't even there.

"The part where I pull that rug out from under you and watch all that hope die in your eyes." Lucifer knelt in front of Sam and smiled, nodding. "There it is." He reached out to clamp a hand around Sam's throat. "You remember this, don't you? All those times we played with spiders?"

Sam shook his head in Lucifer's grip and tried, really tried, to push those memories away, but they came for him anyway…memories of hungry things skittering in the dark, of fangs and too many legs, webs wrapping him so tight he couldn't move, and the sensation of his insides being pulled out while he could only helplessly watch…and scream. "N-no. No."

"Y-yes, S-Sammy," Lucifer teased and let go of his throat as that skittering sound came again behind him. He stood over Sam and grinned. "Time to scream for me."

Sam watched him step back out of the circle of light the flame provided and felt desperately for a weapon. His gun was gone. His bag was gone. He found his knife in his left boot and fumbled it out into his hand as the clicking sound grew louder and closer. "Not happening," Sam muttered softly and ignored it as the lighter warmed uncomfortably in his hand. The small amount of light it gave him was worth it. "This…this isn't happening. I'm out," Sam reminded himself but he no longer felt the truth of it.

He froze and looked around slowly as the webs to his left began to move and his eyes widened in horror. A massive spider, three feet across, crawled into view. It was dark in the flickering light with a fat body and long, crooked legs. It was the legs that did it. If it had simply stayed still, Sam could have ignored it. He'd been fighting this particular problem ever since his wall had come crashing down. Each time he saw a spider it froze him and he'd been able to pass it off and keep Dean unaware until now so long as they didn't move, but the moment he saw the legs…saw them move…he lost the ability to breathe.

Sam's breath clogged in his throat and choked him as those long legs moved the fat, bloated body and tiny head closer and closer. His knife was held forgotten in his hand and the Zippo burning his other. He couldn't even blink; could only watch in horror as it moved and came for him, and, as one long leg reached out and brushed against him, he couldn't stop the scream of his brother's name that tore free of his throat to echo into the tunnel while the devil watched and laughed.

"DEAN!"

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Dean had spent a few fruitless minutes trying to cut through the webs and only succeeded in fouling the blade of his knife with the sticky stuff. He'd gone with Plan B, tugging part of a tree root free from the jagged, broken wall, wrapping it in his overshirt, and coating that in lighter fluid. He held it out and set it alight with his Zippo.

"This is either a really good idea or a really bad idea," Dean said to himself and held the improvised torch out. The flame smoked along the strands of web for a moment, and then the fire caught. It sped up the webbing with a whoosh of air and the flames spread out ahead of him through the tunnel as the stuff burned. Dean grinned. "Nice." He picked his way through the smoking embers, wrinkling his nose at the sour taste in the air, and started down the tunnel as the fire moved ahead of him, dancing and jumping through the tunnel as it flared through the web like magician's paper and left nothing but a sour taste in its wake.

Dean froze as his brother's terrified voice screamed through the tunnel to him and froze his soul. "SAM!" Dean burst into movement, running and pacing the flame as it went from web to web, following it like a trail to a gaping hole in a wall of the train tunnel. He shoved the torch into the web-clogged hole, waiting only for the fire to move on before pushing through, coughing slightly as the smell grew stronger. "Sam! Answer me!"

Sam was caught once more in hell. He managed to move at last and swiped at the giant spider with his knife. The blade glanced off the hard carapace and only succeeded in knocking it off-balance. Sam stumbled to the side on legs gone rubbery and shouted out in fear again as the webs wrapped around his flailing arm. The Zippo fell from his hand to gutter on the floor while he tried to kick and crawl away from the moving nightmare. Distantly he thought he heard his brother's voice, but Lucifer's leering face was there to watch him.

"Can't get away that easy, Sammy." Lucifer laughed and planted a foot in the center of Sam's chest, holding him still so the spider could close the distance. "You haven't screamed enough yet, buddy." He leaned over and dug his fingers into a bleeding wound at Sam's shoulder until Sam cried out and threw his head back. "Closer. Better. Not enough though. Come on, Sammy! You can do better than that!"

Sam rolled out from under the devil's foot even though he knew running was pointless. There was no escape; not ever. "Stop. Stop. Please stop!" Sam begged. The spiders always made him beg faster than anything else Lucifer dreamed up. Pain was easy to ignore, but the terror…that took every ounce of strength from him in a dizzying rush, and he only wanted to make it stop. He crawled a few feet and shouted again when his right foot was yanked back with a bite of pain at his ankle. He rolled to his back again and kicked at the head of the massive spider, jolting its fangs free of his flesh for the moment.

"DEAN!" Sam screamed his brother's name again, even knowing it would do no good. His breath failed him again when six smaller, juvenile spiders scampered over top of the larger to crawl up his body. Sam couldn't make a sound - not a scream, not even the barest of whimpers - as he slapped at them, trying to get them off and crawl away, but the larger spider had hold of him again, and he threw his head back in abject terror as his heart pounded painfully in his chest.

"Sam!" Dean shouted it at his first sight of his little brother sprawled on the floor, one leg held in the mouth of a giant spider, and too many smaller spiders crawling over him. "Get off him!" Dean fired into the back of the giant and held the torch out in front of him when it spun and reared at him with a hiss. He shot into its now exposed underbelly until it toppled, twitching to the side. "Dammit. Sam! I'm here!" His brother was still on the floor, and Dean went to him in a rush. He kicked one of the smaller spiders off Sam's leg and shot it.

"Sam?" Dean watched his brother crawl back on his elbows and frowned. His face was a mask of nothing but fear, and there was no recognition in his eyes that Dean was even there. It made his relief at finding Sam alive short-lived, because he knew that look, had seen it once before in that damn warehouse when Sam had been a heartbeat away from taking his own life to escape the devil in his mind.

Sam pushed frantically at the smaller spiders and reared back as the larger one came for him again. He was dizzy with the need to breathe but couldn't seem to get any oxygen as the thing clamped a firm grip around his arms and pushed him back to the floor. It took him a frantic moment to realize that the spider was speaking to him…was saying his name, and the impossibility of that was enough to fight some small measure of the terror back. He looked up at the creature and watched as its figure seemed to waver and fade. He gave a shocked, pained gasp when he felt the flesh of his left palm part and bleed. Sam looked down and found a hand holding his, a thumb digging into the barely-healed wound to reopen it and looked up to stare at his brother. "Dean?"

Dean blew out a breath of relief that left him dizzy. "I got you, little brother," Dean said as Sam suddenly folded into him and buried his head under Dean's chin like he was a child again, fisting his hands in his big brother's jacket as he shook. "I got you." He wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders and shone his light into the cave. The smaller spiders fled with their mother dead. Dean knew he should go after them and kill them, but he couldn't leave Sam. The job could damn well wait a day to be finished now that they weren't in immediate danger.

"Slow it down, Sammy. Come on," Dean urged, feeling Sam near hyperventilating against his neck. "You gotta put a lid on this or you're gonna pass out. Sam!"

Sam struggled to regain control of his breathing. He could still feel them crawling on him even though he knew they were gone. His skin itched with the sensation and his chest hurt. "Sorry. Sorry," Sam gasped and, for the moment, didn't care that he was clinging to his brother.

"He gone now?" Dean asked, knowing the devil had been tormenting his brother again, and he sighed when Sam nodded into his chest. "Ok. Come on. We're gonna get up now, alright?" Any other time and Sam would have been bitching to show his independence; but, as before, with Lucifer scaring him near to death, Sam's need to be strong fell by the wayside, and Dean didn't mind. He took a firmer hold on his brother's shoulders and pulled, grunting with the effort of getting him to his feet, and then had to just stand and hold on to him to keep Sam from sliding back to the floor. "Gotta help me out here, buddy."

Sam nodded again and convinced his wobbly legs to take his weight. "I'm…I can do it," he said hoarsely and pulled his head out from under his brother's chin to stand more firmly.

Dean kept an arm wrapped firmly around Sam's shoulders and took out his flashlight as his torch began to gutter on the floor. He felt Sam jolt and suck in a breath at the sight of the webs still hanging from the ceiling and walls and tightened his grip. "Close your eyes, alright? Just follow me."

Sam wanted to argue that he could do it, that he could walk out on his own, but at that moment, he couldn't face it and trusted Dean to do this for him. Sam closed his eyes and leaned on him, letting Dean pull and push with the arm over his shoulders, telling him when to step or step down and focused instead on regaining control of his still panicked breathing. "Thank you," Sam whispered it with feeling.

"That's what awesome big brothers are for," Dean said with a pained smile as they trudged back out into the train tunnel and back the way they had come. He had felt it the moment Sam had given up fighting the need to prove he could do this on his own, and just relaxed into Dean's touch, trusting completely in his brother to lead him safely out. The fact that that trust, that bond, was still there after everything they had both been through, over the past couple of years, touched a part of his soul in a way that he had, at times, wondered if he would ever get to feel again. Unconsciously, he tightened his grip on his brother, longing to just be able to keep him this close and shield him from all the pain that was both out in the world and trapped in Sam's head. He could feel blood under his hand at Sam's shoulder, and a quick look with his light showed him more wounds where the giant spider had no doubt taken hold of him to drag him away. He let them go since none of them looked life-threatening and he didn't want to even try to make Sam sit still in those tunnels just then unless he had to.

Sam opened his eyes again an hour later when he felt fresh air on his face and sobbed out a breath in a relief as he saw blue sky through the access tunnel gate.

"Take it easy," Dean said softly and steered his brother outside, supporting him as he limped up the hill back to the turn off where they had parked. He folded Sam into the passenger seat, unsurprised when his brother curled into the door once it was closed.

Sam let the sound of the Impala's engine rumbling through seat and the door he leaned against settle him. That and Dean's hand on the back of his neck in a silent gesture of comfort kept him from climbing out of his own skin with remembered terror, and still he trembled, unable to stop it. At the motel, he was out of the car almost before it stopped and into the bathroom to climb into the shower under the scalding spray.

Dean let his brother wallow in the bathroom as long as he needed, opening the door only long enough to toss Sam's sweats and a shirt onto the sink. He laid out the first-aid kit while he waited and pretended not to hear the quiet sobs over the spray of the shower for Sam's dignity later. He raised a brow at the obviously, scrubbed-raw skin of his arms when Sam finally came out and shook his head.

"Alright, lemme get a look at them." Dean pointed and glared when Sam opened his mouth to argue. "Dude, don't make me make you."

Sam rolled his eyes and dropped into a chair at the table. "Fine." He grudgingly pulled his shirt back off so his brother could get to the wounds on his shoulder and back. "They're not bad."

"I'll be the judge of that." Dean smiled as he moved behind him, relieved to hear a more normal tone in his brother's voice. "Unwrap that hand and sterilize it while I clean these," He ordered and waited until Sam started to unwind the makeshift bandage Dean had wrapped around his left hand and the wound he'd reopened. He grimaced, deciding it was worth hurting Sam to have gotten him back in control.

Sam looked at the open wound in his palm and shuddered softly. He dropped his head in gratitude when Dean's hand landed briefly on the back of his neck again.

"None of these are too bad. Just punctures." Dean taped gauze over the three sets of small, round wounds and let Sam pull his shirt back on. "Let me see that leg."

Sam tugged his shirt back on and held his right leg out, letting his brother push the leg of his sweats up to his knee. "It was real…right? The…the sp…" Sam swallowed hard and made himself say it. "…spider."

"Yeah, Sammy. That part was way too damn real," Dean replied grim-faced as he bent over the more jagged punctures in Sam's calf where the spider had worried at him like a dog with a bone. "It's dead now." He sent a glance up at Sam's pale face. "You didn't used to be scared of spiders, dude."

Sam stiffened and nodded, looking anywhere but his brother's face. "L…Lucifer. In the cage, he'd…" He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

Dean nodded in complete understanding. Even now, years later, he still had trouble putting the things he'd suffered in hell into words, and Sam had almost two hundred years of that nightmare in his head. "Forget it. It's over now." He didn't mention that he would be slipping out once Sam was asleep to go back and gank the babies he'd missed.

"Hand's ok," Sam said it softly and held it out so Dean could see it and nod before he took a length of clean bandage and wound it carefully around his hand.

"You're ok," Dean said firmly and waited for Sam's eyes to meet his. "You know that right? You're out. You're safe." His tone was gentle in a way he only used with his brother. "Well, as safe as we ever are, anyway," he added with a rueful twitch of his lips.

Sam nodded and managed a weak smile. "Yeah, Dean. I know." He handed him the bottle of peroxide. "I'm good." He hissed in a breath as Dean poured it over the wounds in his leg and then grinned. "You have to go running with me."

"What?" Dean looked up in surprise and set the bottle aside. "No way, dude."

"I was right. You have to come with me next time I take a run," Sam chuckled, humor at the now-disgusted look on his big brother's face restoring the rest of his calm.

"Son of a bitch," Dean groaned and wrapped a bandage around Sam's leg. "You are a pain in my ass, you know that?"

Sam snorted. "That's what good little brothers are for, jerk."

"Bitch." Dean slapped Sam's leg and stood. "Go lay down. I'm getting pizza, and no, I'm not putting any damn fruit on it." He smiled as Sam laughed and stumbled to his bed.

Sam dropped to his bed and lay back against the wall. He closed his eyes and shuddered as the image of the giant spider came all too clearly to him. He snapped his eyes open and frowned in confusion. "Dean? What are you doing?" His big brother was going around the room looking under and around every piece of furniture.

Dean's face reddened slightly and he shrugged. "Making sure."

Sam opened his mouth in surprise and then closed it, smiling instead. He grabbed the phone while Dean continued his 'search' and ordered two pizzas loaded with meat because he knew - Dean was making sure there wasn't a single spider of any size anywhere in the room. He was putting Sam's mind at ease the only way he could think of, and that stilled the soft laugh of the devil in his head before it even got started. "Beer?"

"You're concussed," Dean said as he bent and pulled two beers from the fridge. "What makes you think you get one?"

Sam rolled his eyes and held out a hand when Dean came over to drop tiredly onto his own bed. "I can always call back and have them put pineapple on both pizzas."

"Dude, fruit does not belong on pizza. How are you even my brother?" Dean chuckled and handed the second bottle over to him, grabbed the remote, and flicked the television on. His smile became a grin and he leaned back as Mathew Broderick stared down a giant lizard on screen. "Awesome. Godzilla."

"Gojira."

"Geek."

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_The End. _

_A/N: Yes. Writing this made me twitch and itch. XD _


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